We Should Like To Believe
This page is for popular theories regarding the EON Roleplaying Game. Regarding the Past Ashra Okay, reorganizing/revamping my Xenteroth theories here in the light of the Season Seven finale. Basically, there are three mind flayers who are candidates for becoming Xenteroth. I'm guessing it's going to be a sort of "seize ultimate power" thing, and it's not entirely clear whether the most important thing will be to become Xenteroth or stop the others from becoming Xenteroth. It may even not be sealed which one is fated to become Xenteroth; my flippant "Oh, we're Harry and Neville" comment was based on this theory. This ties in very much with the stuff about the present, BTW. Evidence it might be Ashra: *The same session that Ashra took her first level in Archmage, Xenteroth's statue used Arcane Fire, an Archmage ability *Xenteroth never targeted Ashra during that encounter (Combat aside, when we were solving the counting puzzle, the statue took a potshot at Claire, who was solving it, which duplicated the effects of lichbane. Though Ashra took over the pushing of the buttons, Xenteroth did not target her. Though, to be fair, he might have needed to focus on the spell at that point *The endless gears Ashra saw in Olidamarra's tapestry are the same as the gears on the third tapestry (in The Nautilus) about the Fall of Xenteroth *Ashra is the chosen one of the mind flayers (see the New Ashra bit of "about the present") and, if the Motherbrain cannot be forced to return, she might need the immortality granted by lichdom to do what she wants to do. Also, if the Motherbrain can never return, the main thing that makes being an alhoon so abhorrent is gone, because she could never merge back into the Motherbrain anyway. Caveat: becoming a god straight up without having to be that particular alhoon god would also grant her immortality, without any of the downsides. Except, you know, having to become a god. It might also be more conducive to restarting a species which doesn't naturally reproduce. Evidence it might be Xoth: *"Xenteroth" anagrams to "Enter Xoth" *Xoth is also a mage, making him a plausible Archmage candidate ... I think he's a sorcerer, though, making it a bit less likely. *We just don't know that much about him, so for all we know he could even already be Xenteroth, or always have been. Or anyone, really. Basically, can't theorize about this guy too far until we know more about him, but the anagramming actually seems like a really strong vote in his favor. Also, he's been pretty quiet lately... Evidence it might be Grax: *Grax has already gone against the Motherbrain, so he has no reason to care about going against her wishes to become an alhoon. *The dude is clearly doing some sort of incredibly complex power play. He could be attempting to get the power necessary to become Xenteroth. *He is also clearly ambitious even for an illithid, so it's more believable than usual that he'd be going for that. *If Ashra is fated to become Xenteroth, he might want to beat her to it so that he has that power in the final showdown. Alternatively, if she's fated to take on some other awesome power, he could be going after becoming Xenteroth in order to have power with which to beat her. Also, general other note about Xenteroth: *The dude's not dead and he didn't fall. The Fall of Xenteroth shows a paladin taking a death blow against the body of Xenteroth, and that's not how you kill a lich. He allowed them to think he was dead so that he could lie low. He may have plane shifted or time shifted away, either because he doesn't want to be here when shit goes down, he is here when shit is going down in disguise (if this is the case, he is probably either present Xoth or a currently unknown figure), or there's something better he can do to help if he's hidden. He may even have faked his own "death" to spawn the whole Race to Become Xenteroth thing that the remaining mind flayers seem to be setting up for. Either way, dude wasn't defeated straight up, those "heroes" played right into his hands. Regarding the Here and Now Gauve *GRAX IS A POLYMORPHED LICH VAMPIRE AND YOU ALL JUST THINK HE'S A MINDFLAYER. Ethan *''Everyone is out to get me and you're not paranoid if it's true'' Ashra 1.0 *Grax is either working with the Mother Brain of Baldur in a power-play against the other Mother Brains and, indeed, the whole world, or Grax has deceived, taken over, or eliminated the Mother Brain of Baldur and is eliminating the other Mother Brains to his own ends, or the ends of someone commanding him. *In either case, he is trying to weaken all the civilizations of Eon in a series of pointless wars, but in particular the nation of Baldur. *By the time you are allowed to know Grax's true goals, it will be far too late to stop him. *Any time you think you have the advantage on Grax, odds are you're actually helping him. See: Circle of the True. See Also: Xanatos Gambit *Grax is either in charge of the Circle of the True or he has manipulated the Circle of the True into attempting to assassinate him during Eon: The Jade Warriors (Spring 2008) so he could seize power. One way or another, this guy is playing not just both sides, but every side. New Ashra *If the Mother Brains are indeed all off the Prime Material Plane, they have determined that the end of the world is nigh and traveled back in time to start the race of mind flayers. Whether they came to this conclusion on their own or were tricked into it is unclear. *If Ethan and Kruglor, who both also touched the entropic reaper's scythe, do not suffer the curse, a possible alternate trigger for the curse was proximity to Claire. She's usually riding on Herr Doctor, and Ashra was in her mind shortly before crazy time. (It could also be touching the lantern and not the scythe, except that Ashra never actually touched the lantern -- Claire escaped with it when she made a grab for it.) New stuff in the light of Season Seven Finale. Some of this may not even be considered theorizing too much, as Ashra is acting on it quite explicitly in Eon Prime and it's not all long leaps. Some of it is probably the crazy leaps of logic I'm here to provide. But here you go: *Since the Motherbrain wished her luck and did not tell her to plane shift or allow herself to be plane shifted, Ashra was chosen by the Motherbrain to represent her interests. She is, therefore, the Chosen One/Avatar/Voice/Insert Fancy Term Here of the Motherbrain. *She's either supposed to protect the stable time loop in which mind flayers existed (if it's not possible to make there be mind flayers any more), fix the current world such that the Motherbrains can return, or somehow restart the race of illithids on her own -- either by gaining the powers of a Motherbrain or by becoming a god who can create life. Or some other tactic we don't know yet. *That particular message was sealed in her memories with the intent that she would discover it and learn she is the Chosen One, but hidden so that Grax and Xoth couldn't easily read it in her mind if they found her, as they wouldn't know what to look for, and so that she wouldn't be any more arrogant than a normal mind flayer while she was still too young to take the heat. She wasn't even fully formed yet, and the Motherbrain probably wanted her to lie low. *It's also possible that there was some farther significance to those words besides "aww, Mommybrain loves me." They may have had some magical effect or something, given the power of the being they were said by, and sealing them in Ashra's memory may have had some other effect. I'm still fairly surprised Ashra wasn't wiped out by forces under Grax's control while she was still young and weak; he could at the very least have taken a hit out on her as we kept thinking he did on Ethan of Malvont. (Or, you know, someone could have attempted to kill her and it all traced back to Grax but we didn't figure that out. I don't remember spontaneous attempts by anyone to assassinate Ashra, though. Even the Circle of the True ended up going "okay, well, yeah, mind flayer, but we'll *cough* let you live for now kthxbai" if I recall correctly.) A possible reason she lived is that the Motherbrain somehow managed to protect her with those words. Has anyone ever attempted to scry on her? *This may, in fact, have been why Grax had to turn himself into Time Shifted Baudin -- if Ashra is specifically protected from "Grax", this may have been his way to attempt to sneak around that protection. It would also explain why Ashra and Fauxdin got along so spectacularly poorly. (Yes, there's another reason OoC, but I'm going by Ashra's logic here.) *Three mind flayers remain now: Ashra, Grax, and Xoth. Grax chose to stay and forced the Motherbrains to leave, either by outright force somehow or by setting up conditions in which they were forced to plane shift (actually, I'm guessing timeshift) away. Maybe he threatened them with a frozen fate? Xoth was also allowed to stay because he was in league with Grax. If there are any other mind flayers still on the planet, it'll be a Big Deal. *Xoth may well be Xenteroth. Not just fated to become Xenteroth, I mean the dude may actually be the old Xenteroth, having made himself look like a normal mind flayer. The times should roughly match up, given Xenteroth's "defeat" was over a standard mind flayer lifespan ago. What his ultimate intentions are in this case is therefore unclear. Alternatively, he may be the precursor to Xenteroth in a stable time loop; see the theories about the past for the list of Xenteroth candidates. *If the Motherbrain didn't give Ashra Protection from Grax, then there's a reason Grax hasn't set up Ashra to die yet. Either he doesn't think she's a threat, or he needs her alive for some reason. In either case, she could have easily met a fate like Ethan's (minus the crawling out of hell part) and it's presumably intentional that she didn't. Regarding the Future Ashra *Something big is destined to happen on the plane of Mechanis. It's both Ashra's destiny and Xenteroth's, and while there's no way to check, I wouldn't be surprised if it were Grax's destiny and possibly Xoth's as well. *That may even be where the Motherbrains went, if they didn't end up in the past. *There may also be some significance to the (frequently exploited) fact that Ashra and Grax look similar, even to mind flayers. This is especially noteworthy if Grax is indeed an ulitharid (basically a super mind flayer). *Grax set himself up as a messiah of the downtrodden. Ashra may find (or put) herself in the same position in some sort of epic Code Geass-style PR battle if the political climate and party structure ever allow it. Considering she's currently with (pick your country, any country... no, really, any country)'s Most Wanted 1-5 at any given time, this may not be the right moment. Also, there'd have to be a non mind flayer race that cares about mindflayers. But I wouldn't be surprised if that's the direction that her quest ends up taking her, especially if Ethan of Malvont leaves to do his own thing and she ends up running The Company. *Oh, and if Ethan of Malvont leaves, Ashra probably will be the next to run it. Incidentally, if the company changes names with each CEO, her vote may be for "Bena Fortuna" as the new name of the company. Just FYI. *... That may, in fact, be a bad idea, but if Grax knows about it, he already knows, and if he doesn't know about it, it won't have significance to him ... I hope. Category:Game Mechanics Category:Forums